A Virgin and Child from the Workshop of Albrecht Dürer?

Abstract

A detailed technical examination was carried out on the panel painting often known as Madonna with the Iris, which has been described most recently as 'school of Dürer' and which was considered to have been painted soon after Dürer's death.

Many of the materials match in detail those found in contemporary paintings, for example: hairs or fibres reinforcing inserts where knots were, a red lake of kermes on a calcium-containing substrate, and verdigris with a small amount of copper chloride.

IR reflectography and an improved X-radiograph made after removal of a cradle enabled the evolution of the image to be compared to Dürer's work. GC-MS analysis of an early varnish layer as a spirit varnish such as sandarac, and of a varnish below the monogram as manila copal (only available from the end of the 18th century), led to a greater understanding of which parts of the composition could indeed have been painted by Dürer. An early 16th-century date is likely, and production in Dürer's workshop is entirely possible.